Accounting history and empirical research

1

The Accounting Historians Journal
Vol. 20, No. 2
December 1993
Barbara D. Merino
and
Alan G. Mayper
UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS
ACCOUNTING HISTORY AND
EMPIRICAL RESEARCH
Abstract: This paper examines historical methodology and suggests
ways accounting history may be made more relevant to contempo­rary
accounting researchers. First there is a brief discussion of the
"traditional" accounting history method, the documentary model,
and an examination of history methodologies that offer alternatives
modes of inquiry. This includes the pattern model and rhetorical
analysis. This discussion is brief and focused on only issues examined
in subsequent discussion of the empirical research. The discussion of
the empirical research, including behavioral research, focuses on
three issues: retrodiction, with examples concerning securities legis­lation;
belief transference, with examples concerning the demand for
auditing; and methodological transference, with examples from the
behavioral literature including a discussion of the importance of his­torical
context and sensitivity. The objectives are [1] to show how all
researchers need to tell more plausible stories and how historical
analyses can clarify and enhance understanding of the complex envi­ronment
in which accountants function, [2] to suggest fruitful areas
for future accounting historical/empirical/behavioral research and [3]
to issue a call for diversity, tolerance, and a free exchange of ideas—
stressing these as values that cannot be separated from accountants'
research activity.
Ball and Foster's [1982] methodological review of empirical
research highlights the difficult tradeoffs that empirical re­searchers
face when attempting to integrate the institutional en­vironment
of accounting with the constraints imposed by ab­stract
models borrowed from economics, psychology, statistics,
and mathematics. Ball and Foster address validity issues and
offer several explanations, such as competing world views, as to
why this body of research has been less than convincing, con­cluding
that one reason may be that accounting empiricists do
not tell "plausible" stories.1 Since, as Williams [1992] points out,
1Ball and Foster [1982] address four validity issues—internal, construct,
statistical conclusion, and external validity—associated with quasi-experimental